184 LEWIS. ANTIQUITIES. 



warfare, the pleasing dreams in which we are apt to con- 

 template the feudal Highland government, evaporate. 



THE dearth as well as the unimportant nature of the - 

 antiquities found in the Western islands is such, that it 

 is rarely necessary to allot much space to their de- 

 scription. The greater number of those which occur in 

 Lewis resemble so nearly those described in other parts 

 of this work, arid are at the same time so little interesting, 

 as to require no detailed notice. Its Druidical monu- 

 ments are however numerous and remarkable, although 

 hitherto recorded only in the imperfect accounts of 

 Martin and in the equally unsatisfactory reports of the 

 Statistical Survey. 



It is well known that Scotland possesses numerous 

 specimens of those structures which have been attributed 

 to the Druids, but, with the present exception, they 

 are, in the Western islands, both rare and unimportant. 

 The neighbourhood of Loch Bernera contains many of 

 them, and all comprised in a tract comparatively small, 

 since a square mile would probably include the whole. 

 They are situated in an open and fertile tract on the 

 borders of this intricate inlet of the sea ; and if they 

 were really temples dedicated to Druidical worship, their 

 aggregation would seem to imply that this spot was 

 the seat of a college, as it has been called, of this order 

 of priests; a Druidical monastery. Even in this case, 

 the number crowded into one spot, in a countiy of 

 which the population in ancient times must have been 

 thinly disseminated, may be allowed to excite reasonable 

 doubts respecting their real destination. But it is fruitless 

 to speculate on subjects which seem doomed for ever to 

 doubt and conjecture. I will however describe the most 

 remarkable of these erections, since the magnitude and 

 disposition of the work bespeak its former importance, and 

 since its state of integrity renders it, after Stonehenge, among 



